YEREVAN, JUNE 2, NOYAN TAPAN. The Secretariate of Rotterdam Convention jointly with the RA Ministry of Environmental Protection is holding a regional consultation aimed at Convention's fulfilment on June 2-6 in Yerevan. Rotterdam Convention has been ratified by 120 countries, including Armenia, in 2003. Convention's goal is to contribute to ensuring common responsibility of importing and exporting countries in the issue of protection of human health and environment from harmful influence of dangerous chemical substances. As Simon Papian, the RA Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection, said, over the last decades the considerable growth of chemical industry volumes and sale of its production have called forth concern in different layers of society. According to him, countries not having the respective infrastructures for exercising control over importing, exporting, and use of chemical substances and pest-killers are most vulnerable in that respect. S. Papian said that the Armenian state environmental protection policy is aimed at ensuring secure management of chemical substances and wastes to prevent their dangerous influence on human health and environment. According to the Deputy Minister, the Convention permits those countries to carry out monitoring and control of trade of some dangerous chemical substances. Anahit Alexandrian, the Head of the Dangerous Substances and Wastes Management Department of the Ministry, said that in 2005 the RA government confirmed the list of 33 chemical substances and pest-killers regulated by Rotterdam Convention and prohibited in Armenia. According to her, use of these substances was prohibited in the country from the 70-s. They are substances containing chlorine and mercury combinations. It was also mentioned that the Convention envisages to provide technical aid to the sides for development of proper infrastructures and potential in the sphere of rational use of chemical substances.

---